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Stenka25 Posted 11 years ago
Grammar
Restrictive vs. non-restrictive pronoun
restrictive vs. non-restrictive pronoun
The passage below is from ‘the Blank Slate’ by Steven Pinker.
http://evolbiol.ru/blankslate/blankslate.htm
The map of the visual field, for instance, was far more precise in the left-right direction than in the up-down direction. That is because the left-right direction was mapped onto an axis of the auditory cortex that in normal animals represents different sound frequencies and thus gets inputs from the inner ear that are precisely arranged in order of frequency. But the up-down direction was mapped onto the perpendicular axis of the auditory cortex, which ordinarily gets a mass of inputs of the same frequency. Sur also notes that the connections between the primary auditory cortex and other brain areas for hearing (the equivalent of the wiring diagram for the visual system on page 88) were unchanged by the new input.
In this passage the underlined 'that' is served as the restrictive pronoun and in the next sentence 'which' as the non-restrictive pronoun with a comma. One of the ground for this distinction between restrictive vs. non-restrictive seems to be that the precedent of the former has an article 'an' in 'an axis' and the precedent of the latter has an indefinite article 'the' in 'the perpendicular axis'.
(Am I right?)
Let me ask another question regarding the first question.
If I use 'that' without a comma instead of 'which' with comma, and make the non-restrictive pronoun the restrictive, is that sentence severely wrong?
Regards.
The passage below is from ‘the Blank Slate’ by Steven Pinker.
http://evolbiol.ru/blankslate/blankslate.htm
The map of the visual field, for instance, was far more precise in the left-right direction than in the up-down direction. That is because the left-right direction was mapped onto an axis of the auditory cortex that in normal animals represents different sound frequencies and thus gets inputs from the inner ear that are precisely arranged in order of frequency. But the up-down direction was mapped onto the perpendicular axis of the auditory cortex, which ordinarily gets a mass of inputs of the same frequency. Sur also notes that the connections between the primary auditory cortex and other brain areas for hearing (the equivalent of the wiring diagram for the visual system on page 88) were unchanged by the new input.
In this passage the underlined 'that' is served as the restrictive pronoun and in the next sentence 'which' as the non-restrictive pronoun with a comma. One of the ground for this distinction between restrictive vs. non-restrictive seems to be that the precedent of the former has an article 'an' in 'an axis' and the precedent of the latter has an indefinite article 'the' in 'the perpendicular axis'.
(Am I right?)
Let me ask another question regarding the first question.
If I use 'that' without a comma instead of 'which' with comma, and make the non-restrictive pronoun the restrictive, is that sentence severely wrong?
Regards.
Top answer
Stenka25 One of the ground for this distinction between restrictive vs. ) Yes, that seems true: there seems to be only one perpendicular (he means 'vertical', I think) axis, hence any modification is non-restrictive. Stenka25 If I use 'that' without a comma instead of 'which' with comma, and make the non-restrictive pronoun the restrictive, is that sentence severely wrong?
- Stenka25 One of the ground for this distinction between restrictive vs.
- ) Yes, that seems true: there seems to be only one perpendicular (he means 'vertical', I think) axis, hence any modification is non-restrictive.
- Stenka25 If I use 'that' without a comma instead of 'which' with comma, and make the non-restrictive pronoun the restrictive, is that sentence severely wrong?
- If my supposition above is correct—that there is only one perpendicular axis—then your change would be wrong.
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1 Answers
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Stenka25 One of the ground for this distinction between restrictive vs. non-restrictive seems to be that the precedent of the former has an article 'an' in 'an axis' and the precedent of the latter has an indefinite article 'the' in 'the perpendicular axis'.(Am I right?)Yes, that seems true: there seems to be only one perpendicular (he means 'vertical', I thi
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